Speaker 1: Joel Corey is the CBS Sports NFL contracts and salary
cap experts. You can find him on Twitter at Corey Joel.
That is Coe r r Y Joel. Appreciate the time
as always, long time no talk. Yeah, thanks for having
me back, all right, we do appreciate it, all right,
So let's go ahead and get right into it. Well,
actually I was talking with my coost before this, like
we were trying to figure out Okay, so can you explain?
Speaker 2: Both CJ.
Speaker 1: Stroud and Will Anderson are up for a fifth year option.
So the Texans I believe, have until May second, and
then after that they it's just a no go that
the both of those guys could refree agents, which is
they're probably not gonna let happen of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, the rookie contracts are for four years. First
round picks have a fifth year option after the third season.
You have up until May second to go yes or
no for the fifth year option. The no brainer is
Will Anderson, they will pick up the fifth year option.
Speaker 2: CJ. Stroud.
Speaker 3: I know the last two games were horrendous, but his
body of work over the three years and the price
of the fifth year option suggests they will pick that up,
so they will not be free agents after the twenty
twenty sixth season if they both end up continuing to
play under the rookie deals.
Speaker 1: All right, let's start with Will Anderson, then we'll get
to the fun one. With CJ. Stroud. It seems pretty obvious.
I mean, first team All Pro, twelve sacks career high.
Not only that the opposite of CJ. Stroud, and that
Stroud wasn't very good in the playoffs. Will Anderson was
completely dominant in the playoffs. So we expect some sort
of mega deal to be happening. And I had your
article that I was reading as I said, you expect
him to maybe kind of in a way reset the
market as far as edge rushers, and how hard are
the Texans going to push for trying to get something
done before that May second deadline.
Speaker 3: Well, he's a guy that should be top priority. Last
year with Derek Stingley Junior, they got that thing done
so early it was in March.
Speaker 2: They hadn't even exercised the fifth year option.
Speaker 3: So if i'm Will Anderson, I'm like, hey, this is
the president you set with all Pro defensive players who
are first team All pros in their third year. I
want the same type of treatment in terms of timing
and what you did retive to the marketplace. Corners for Stingley, obviously,
edge rushers for Anderson with me.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he's gonna try.
Speaker 3: To reset the non quarterback market. I expect there to
be some pushback from the Texans given how much that
are escalated last year. This time last year, the highest
paid edge rusher was Nick Bosa at thirty four million
per year. Now it's Michael Parsons at forty six and
a half million per year. That's almost the thirty seven
percent increase. That's practically unheard of, so they may want
to slot him in kind of like the Texans did
not the Texans. The Lions did with Aiden Hutchinson, who
came in at forty five million per year, did not
top Micah Parsons, and that deal was done in the
middle of the twenty twenty five season.
Speaker 4: Do you kind of look at this Joel with it
and they have Daniel Hunter still very much in the
middle of his prime and playing fantastic for him, but
obviously he's had a high dollar value, but this will
be basically the last year of his deano. They added
a couple of void years, But uh, do you kind
of look at it as a capologist says, Okay, the
Will Anderson big money starts up as soon as the
Daniel Hunter money comes off the books.
Speaker 2: Kind of yeah, because where.
Speaker 3: You're going to structure it that the cap number is
not going to take a huge jump for a couple
of years. But Hunter's interesting that she brought him up.
He's gonna be thirty two during the middle of the
next season. He's not showing any slime signs of slow
and down. If you let him play out this year's deal,
then he's walking. Because to franchise him in twenty twenty seven,
it's going to be a little over thirty seven and
a half million dollars and that won't happen.
Speaker 1: That kind of drives our point home about how I
mean this. You don't want to say they use the
word waste, but it was an elite all time Texans defense,
and you just couldn't get anything out of the offense.
And then that leads us to CJ. Stroud. Of course,
the headliner. The offensive line was bad, the running game
was bad. You had Nico Collins hurt in that Patriots game.
As well, so it wasn't all CJ. Stroud, But when
you turn the ball over four times in the first
half before we get cut, kind out of the ends
and outs. As far as options of contract, where do
you think the Texans weigh that Joel? As far as
the body of work to where he by many metric
qbr A quarterback rating, touchdown percentage, interception percentage. In the
regular season, he had a bit of a bounce back
season from a sophomore slump, but then those playoffs happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, part of the problem is he had his best
year when he was a rookie and you were thinking
he's on an upward trajectory and he hasn't had a
year like his rookie year since. And then you compound
the problem by having back to back two of the
worst playoff games I've seen for a quarterback in recent history.
It kind of rivaled with Sam Darnold did the last
week of the regular season last year and the playoff
game against the Rams last year, which he's definitely bounced
back from. But yeah, you don't want to be going
into the offseason potentially trying to get a new contract
off of that ending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what are the options in for the Texas
right now, as far as the fifth year option, they
can do that. Do you think there is any possibility
they do some sort of extension where he's not getting
paid fifty sixty million dollars a year. David Mulligeta is
his agent, and we know he's a guy that's been
very good at getting quarterbacks.
Speaker 3: Paid well who basically whatever position he has generally, But
good luck with that because mullagedto resented de Shaun Watson,
who's the last time in Texas did a big quarterback deal.
Thirty nine million per year at the time made Watson
the second highest paid player in the NFL. Granted, Watson
was coming off a much better year twenty nineteen as
a third year player than Watson is now, but nonetheless,
Mullagetta is thinking, hey, let's look at the totality the circumstances,
not be prisoners of the moment, have recency bias. For
my three years body of work is better than Trevor
Lawrence is three years when they got paid.
Speaker 2: This is what Mullagata will probably be thinking.
Speaker 3: You're saying, if they do talk contract extension and Trevor
Lawrence after a third year where the Jaguars imploded down
the stretch, missed the playoffs, he didn't play at the
same level he did in the second year. He made
him in a tie Joe Burrow as the highest paid
player five million per year. Then shortly thereafter Dave Mullaghetta
took Jordan Love, who had one good second half of
the season his first year as a starter, played well
in the playoffs.
Speaker 2: Ties those two guys at fifty.
Speaker 3: Five million per year before Dak Prescott tops everybody.
Speaker 2: So he's not gonna be looking at anything besides one
of these top of the market deals is.
Speaker 4: The key, Joel with a CJ. Stroude, as young as
he is, still like if we're talking in long term
contract extension, is the key higher aav at like a
four year deal as opposed to a five or six
year deal like hot. I'm just kind of looking at
some of the current contracts out there, and Jordan Love
at twenty five, like you just mentioned, fifty five million year,
but four years, I wonder you know, it feels like
more teams are leaning towards that four year deal as
opposed to those five or six year deals.
Speaker 3: Well, typically teams won a lot up their best players
for as long as possible, and Love was a changing
of the guard because you had when Trevor Lawrence did
his deal, you were coming off a bunch of five
year deals. Jalen Hurts five year extension, Lamar Jackson five
year deal as a franchise player.
Speaker 2: Then you had Joe Burrow Justin Herbert.
Speaker 3: Got their deals done after the third or both five
year extensions, So that environment was five years. So if
Trevor Lawrence wanted a four, all the data pointed to
a five, then you had Tua get a four year deal.
Jared Goff get a four year deal, which allowed Jordan
Love to go four.
Speaker 2: So this is a case.
Speaker 3: If I'm the Texans, I would kind of be looking
at it from the standpoint that, yeah, if we wait
and CJ. Stroud has a career year, yeah we're gonna
pay more. But Kyler Murray, being my cautionary tale, his
agent pushed to get a deal after three years, and
he's probably not gonna be with the Cardinals next year.
Speaker 2: The Rams had.
Speaker 3: Buyer's remorse with Jared Goff did his after three years,
and he took him to a Super Bowl. At least
got them He was the quarterback when they were in
a Super Bowl and Philly cut bait with Carson Wentz
pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: After doing his Roocky contract after three years.
Speaker 3: So because of how things have gone south, sometimes I
might be inclined to wait Anderson's my top priority.
Speaker 2: If after pay.
Speaker 3: More in the long run to be sure that CJ
is the guy, then I would have more peace of
mind doing that.
Speaker 4: Talking with Joel Corey on one of the best when
it comes to talking NFL contracts and salary cap been
doing a long time, of course, CBS. It is interesting though, Joel,
the one of the big copics that came up here
in Houston after Stroud's less than stellar postseason is okay,
should should we pivot? And you look at what a
Sam Darnold's doing right now. Obviously he was a hired
assassin with Minnesota last year was very good, and now
he takes the Seahawks to the super Bowl. It is
interesting that concept of when you have your quarterback, you
feel like, oh, maybe we gotta pay this guy just
to keep him because we don't like the alternative. But
to your point, Kyler Murray, the cautionary tale, I mean,
Trevor Lawrence had the nice resurgent year this year, But
prior to this year, I think people were wondering as
should they have paid him? And then a TUA down
in Miami. You look at that situation, it just becomes Man,
it feels like the norm now is even if you're
questions about this guy, you pay him because you just
don't know. It's better than the alternative, which is the unknown.
Speaker 2: You get to nail on the head.
Speaker 3: Fear of the unknown has been driving a lot of
quarterback decisions. And I'll use one going back a few
years at the time, eighteen million per year.
Speaker 2: Believe it or not, it was a lot full quarterback.
Speaker 3: I forget exactly what year it was, but Jake Cutler
got an extension. Yeah, and it's like, you really want
to give Jake Cutler that type of money, and that's
what happened. So yeah, that factors in the equation.
Speaker 2: But CJ.
Speaker 3: Stroud's really young, so there's nothing that says you have
to do a quarterback extension at the earliest possible instance.
Speaker 2: You can wait.
Speaker 3: Lamar Jackson ended up being the rare quarterback who plays
through the fifth year option. Andrew Luck back when he
was considered a franchise quarterback didn't get a deal which
made the highest paid player until going into the fifth
year option. So you don't have to do the deal today.
You can exercise some caution. Let's say Stroud is starting
to play on the fourth year the Roocke contract starts
lighting it up early.
Speaker 2: In the year. You may revisit it then if you
don't want to do.
Speaker 3: It right now, if the numbers of the David that
I suspect David Mullagatta will be asking for.
Speaker 1: You know, we've also seen a situation where guys have
gotten let go. You mentioned Sam Darnold, I mean, Baker Mayfield.
We have Jared Goff was traded, but he wasn't thought
of as an elite guy with people.
Speaker 2: For did like he was a throw in. And yeah,
it was just a matter of time before he was
done in the Trent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly. So it's it's not like they thought
that he was gonna be so, I mean, it's it's
interesting that the dichotomy where you don't want to end
up in that situation where you cut bait with CJ.
Stroud and he thrives somewhere else, but also at the
time when those guys came, they weren't making sixty million dollars,
so it kind of makes it easier to build around
that guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you also have to think of the fact
that the cap has gone up since those guys signed,
so relative to cap inflation, I know the quarterback market
has gone haywire, but still sometimes that gets lost in
the equation.
Speaker 2: You have the fifth year option. It's going to be.
Speaker 3: Extremely reasonable costs for a starting quarterback.
Speaker 2: It's not going to be.
Speaker 3: An elevated amount because that Pro Bowl from Stroud's rookie
year doesn't factor into increasing the costs.
Speaker 2: He was not an original ballot Pro Bowler.
Speaker 3: So it's gonna be the basically the average of a
third through twenty of highest paid quarterbacks. And I'm simplifying
it a bit for the option cost and depending and
it's gonna be the exact number depends on where the
cap is set, because it's express the percentage of the cap.
But it's gonna be roughly twenty five to twenty six
million for Stroud.
Speaker 2: That's a reasonable number for a quarterback. Is a salary,
all right.
Speaker 1: He is Joel Corey a great expert on NFL contracts
and the salary cap for CBS Sports. Joel, thanks for
the time. It's been too long. I'm sure we'll bother
you pretty soon with the CJ. Strouds situation as it
continues to develop it.
Speaker 2: And just go ahead.
Speaker 1: Let the folks know what you got going on the
website and where they can find your stuff.
Speaker 3: Okay, you can find it at cbssports dot com. I've
got an article out right now on fifteen notable veterans
who could either be traded or released. And then I
do an annual contract awards and that will come out tomorrow.
Speaker 1: All right, Thanks a lot, Joel, appreciate the time. We'll
talk you down the road, all right.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, guys,